can we turn back time?
by oswins
Summary: "If they squint they can almost see the days when they weren't all so hauntingly broken." —Spencer wants to forget; Hanna eats until it doesn't hurt; Aria vents her frustration in kissing and all Emily wants is her friend back. :: They try to remember a time when A was just a letter.


_all the lonely people  
where do they all belong?  
_–eleanor rigby, the beatles.

* * *

If they squint they can almost see the days when they weren't all so hauntingly broken.

_—_

_spencer;_

All Spencer wants to do is forget. She wants to forget the horror and the torment and the image of her best friends corpse rotting in a half dug grave at the end of someones lawn. It's the image which seems to be perpetually burned to the inside of her eyelids, a constant reminder of all the many times she has fucked up; every harsh word, every argument. Every time she could have said goodbye.

She wants to be able to fall asleep at night and for her eyes not to stray to the window, worrying which axe-wielding psychopath is waiting outside her bedroom. It's funny, Spencer thinks – in a very morbid way – that before, the only A she had to worry about was the one she needed to get in AP Physics.

(Now it's so much more than a _letter –_ a ghostly being, hovering on the edge of her vision, twisting the foundations of her very world, waiting for the right moment to pounce.)

Sometimes when she is alone in her house – a maze of creaks and a myriad of shadows and whispers running a long walls which have contained secret after goddamned secret – Spencer burrows herself under her covers. She curls up until a ball, hugging her knees to her chest and pretending that she's far, far away from a small town called Rosewood, shrouded in layers of mystery so thick that Spencer would have to be oh so much bigger than five feet seven to fight her way out.

So for now she's stuck – laughing through the tears – yearning for a life that isn't hers and mind that has forgotten.

—

Their hearts are still beating but now their minds are now dead.

—

_hanna;_

Sometimes Hanna can't decide if she would cry or slap her if Ali ever came back. Her mind is a torrent of consuming hatred mixed with that feeling of love and the need to protect which can only be associated with best friends. She thinks that the two words to describe her life are quite simply _screwed over. _Over and over again, people she let into her jagged heart have done nothing but twist themselves deeper and deeper before pulling themselves out leaving nothing but more scars.

First it was her father. Then Ali. Then Mona.

Each of them took a piece of her with them and even after all these years – this months, days, hours, seconds – it still hurts. It burns at the very core of Hanna's being and she wonders, after all this time, why there's so much goddamned pain.

When she thinks no one is looking she will break – everything Hanna has ever held captured in heart that felt too much flows free – every unspoken word and forgotten goodbye. Every jibe and tease and nickname. Every unwanted tear which slid down her cheek regardless of how much she tried to stop it.

Some nights Hanna curls up on the sofa – she watches RomComs on late night channels, spooning ice cream slowly into her mouth until the carton is empty and Hanna can force herself to believe that one day her life will spin out into a fairytale and her prince can carry her far, far away.

—

They're standing in a crowded world but really they're all oh so lonely.

—

_aria;_

She's got Ezra against a wall and amidst the frantic kissing and her hands wrapping so tightly around his narrow frame, she wonders why he hasn't broken yet, all Aria feels is frustration. It's a sort of madness which is corrupting her, driving her too the end of an edge cliff, threatening to crumble over the edge without a seconds warning.

So she clings to Ezra like he's her lifeline. He's her only support – the nail anchoring her to solid ground. His body moves against hers and the burning in Aria's chest begins to fade – not completely; never completely. But it moves from a sharp, blinding, _all consuming _hurt to a dull ache and Aria can almost pretend that her best friend isn't dead; that she slept with her teacher; that her world has turned upside down into a mad, hectic mess.

Or so she likes to pretend.

But really, Aria's _free falling_. That's it. The cliff edge is long gone at this stage. Her fingernails: once glazed and bright and fake – just like the rest of this painted town – are scratching at the cliff face, reaching for a hand hold which isn't there.

She knows that really that she's been falling for so long now that there's no stopping her. All she can do is repress the frustration, building up inside of her, waiting for the right moment to burst free – a monster restrained on a leash so thin it's almost invisible.

Aria kisses Ezra and Ezra is whispering sweet nothings against her lips but right now Aria can't bring herself to care.

—

There's no amount of glue in the world to fix their broken hearts.

—

_emily;_

Emily just wants her friend back. She wants to be able to wake up every morning, get out of bed and be safe in the knowledge that her best friend – her first love – is still alive. Sometimes she wonders if she is the only one who doesn't hate Ali. Watching her friends struggle through the mad world Ali left behind, Emily watches their respect, their love for their fallen friend begin to fade.

She played them around – four little marionettes, suspended by strings which could be cut so easily, breaking the very foundations they stood; on shattering their worlds. But Emily still can't bring herself to hate Ali.

Some mornings – early, when the sky is just tinged slightly pink and the world is soft, and Emily can pretend she can shape it into any paradise she might wish to – Emily finds herself sitting in her window seat, her fingers running over her lips as she watches the sun rise and remembers Ali.

She tries to remember her at her best, rather than her worst. She remembers the sleepovers and the laughter and the time Hanna got so drunk she fell into the Hasting's pond. She remembers the hugs and the dancing and the first time she kissed Ali. She remembers how her lips tasted like vanilla and just the tiniest bit of regret.

Emily remembers it all and hopes that next time – when she does this all again tomorrow – that maybe she won't cry.

—

Maybe one day they'll wake up and they won't be so alone

—

_liars;_

They stand side by side in front of the church. A row of pointed bones, pale skin and haunted eyes, picked out by their black dresses and nervous finger, toying with the hems of their skirts. The stand – four beautiful, lost girls – and people wonder when they became so broken.


End file.
